Never have I thought that I would be the first white person someone sees.
On Friday, the pastor we are working with took us to a little village a couple hours away from Kampala. It’s the village that he grew up in and most of his family still lives there. He took us there to visit a small Christian school to encourage the children and parents and to preach at the church there.
It was a very beautiful drive. As we drove farther and farther away from the city, we passed the largest forest in Uganda, a sugar cane factory and lots of tea fields. On and on we drove farther out into the bush. I had no idea I could get so far out into the middle of nowhere.
Dirt roads
Mud huts
Cows
Chickens
Goats
No electricity
Rice fields
Potato fields
Banana trees
Men riding bicycles
Women getting water from a well
Barefoot children playing with an old tire
A smile across each of their faces
We arrived at the little school at about 4:30 in the afternoon. We found out that they had been waiting for us since early in the morning. Not a single one of them had ever seen a white person before. Not even the oldest man in the village. The children sang a couple songs for us. One of the songs talked about how they were so glad to welcome their visitors. Garrett spoke to them about how the same God that is inside of us is the same One inside of them. I could really feel the Holy Spirit’s presence in the short time we were with those children; there was a peace in that remote little village.
The same God that we worship in America is in Uganda. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ.
In the evening we had tea and ate dinner by lantern light. The evening church service started around 9pm and last a few hours. It was full of praise, prayer, testimonies and worship of the King of Kings. All five of us on my team had a chance to share a message. Never had I thought I’d be preaching at midnight before. I shared a little about God’s love for us, how we are all His children and how he desperately longs for a relationship with each one of us.
God is love!
John 13:34-35
